Soju

Soju
Bottle of Chamisul soju with a branded glass.
Korean name
Hangul
Hanja
Revised Romanization	Soju
McCune–Reischauer	Sochu

Soju (Korean pronunciation: [sʰodʑu]; Hangul: 소주; Hanja: 燒酒) is a distilled beverage containing ethanol and water. It is usually consumed neat.

Considered "Korea's most popular alcoholic beverage" in 2014 Jinro soju was the largest selling alcohol brand in the world with sales of 71 million cases worldwide. Most brands of soju are made in South Korea. While it is traditionally made from rice, wheat, or barley, modern producers often replace rice with other starches such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, or tapioca.

Soju is clear and colorless. Its alcohol content varies from about 18% to 45% alcohol by volume (ABV) for traditional Andong soju, with 20% ABV being most common. However, by using freeze distillation, ABV can be increased to the desired percentage.

There are two different ways to produce soju: The traditional way of distilling soju uses the single distillation method to increase the ABV of the drink that is the product of fermentation of various grains. On the other hand, all of the modern soju brands produce the beverage through the dilution of industrial grade ethanol (95% ABV). Bottlers purchase the ethanol in bulk, dilutes via addition of water up to 80% of the total volume, in addition to small amounts of sweetners in order to give flavor. The end products are marketed under a variety of soju brand names. Only a single supplier (대한주정판매) monopolizes the sale of industrial grade ethanol, which is in turn produced by a number of ethanol plants, to all of the soju brand companies that exist in Korea. Therefore, the only difference among the major soju brands is the sweetners that are used. Until the late 1980s, saccharin was the most popular sweetner used by the industry, but it has since been replaced by stevioside.